Collaborative generalisation: Formalisation of generalisation knowledge to orchestrate different cartographic generalisation processes

Abstract

Cartographic generalisation seeks to summarise geographical information from a geographic database to produce a less detailed and readable map. This paper deals with the problem of making different automatic generalisation processes collaborate to generalise a complete map. A model to orchestrate the generalisation of different areas (cities, countryside, mountains) by different adapted processes is proposed. It is based on the formalisation of cartographic knowledge and specifications into constraints and rules sets while processes are described to formalise their capabilities. The formalised knowledge relies on generalisation domain ontology. For each available generalisation process, the formalised knowledge is then translated into process parameters by an adapted translator component. The translators allow interoperable triggers and allow the choice of the proper process to apply on each part of the space. Applications with real processes illustrate the usability of the proposed model. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.